Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw, To Talk of Many Things, An Autobiography, Manchester University Press, 2004.
To talk of many things' is a remarkable account of a remarkable life. This story covers two world wars and the near sixty years that followed in a life dominated by mathematics and public service. Profoundly deaf from birth, Dame Kathleen has never seen her condition as an obstacle. She travelled widely through Europe between the wars, was a wartime don at Somerville College, Oxford, served on national education committees from the 1950s onwards, has been at various times on the Boards of the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester Polytechnic and Lancaster and Salford Universities and in the 1990s chased total eclipses of the sun round the globe.A former Lord Mayor and Freeman of the City of Manchester, Dame Kathleen writes compellingly of her greatest enthusiasm - mathematics. The publication of her work on Magic Squares and her presidency of the Institute of Mathematics have been high points in a long and distinguished career.